


A Thousand Funerals

by cactuskiller



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, Drabble, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotions, Hurt/Comfort, Hydra (Marvel), Implied/Referenced Brainwashing, M/M, Men Crying, Past Brainwashing, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Trauma, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-21
Updated: 2020-05-21
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:40:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24300724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cactuskiller/pseuds/cactuskiller
Summary: Together ‘till the end of the line, Steve has sworn. And well, Captain America keeps his word - so help him God.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Steve Rogers, James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 2
Kudos: 40





	A Thousand Funerals

**Author's Note:**

> quick drabble, might add to this later.

Steve isn’t easy to sneak up on, not with the enhanced body he’s still incredulous about. It still happens though, and usually by Bucky. In the same way that Steve was trained to detect, Bucky - no, the Winter Soldier - was conditioned to avoid. It’s been peaceful lately, and the Avengers are set up in Tony’s very expensive tower. None of them are able to forget the war though, least of all Bucky. He’s doing better - getting better every day, Steve constantly reminds himself, but it’s still hard. They had a word for it when he was enlisted - shellshock, but they call it PTSD now.

Bucky is constantly fighting against himself - the self that HYDRA made him into. Something spoken in another language, a TV show, getting touched all throws him into the past. He slips back into the Winter Soldier so easily, face blank and body combative. Steve doesn’t recognize Bucky when that happens - there’s no vibrancy, no personality. The Winter Soldier is nothing but an empty slate waiting to be filled with someone else’s ideas. Steve is always there to catch him. ‘Til the end of the line, they said, and he always meant it. And well, Steve thinks that’s love.

It’s one of those in between days. A mix of Bucky-and-Winter-Soldier stare out from eyes that are cloudy with the past. On these days, Steve holds Bucky tight like they used to, back when they were still kids. When it was Steve who needed the support, when he choked on wet air like it was water in his lungs. When Bucky worked odd jobs to pay for inhalers but he’d still kiss Steve’s breath away like it was nothing.

They’re sitting together on the floor of Bucky’s designated room. The layout as designed by Tony is pretentious, but together Bucky and Steve have made it into a home. It’s full of Steve’s drawings - of his ma, his sister, of Bucky from.... before. Bucky’s army of therapists said it would be a good exercise for him to get his feelings out in a creative medium, and Steve couldn’t let him face them alone. Together ‘till the end of the line, Steve has sworn. And well, Captain America keeps his word - so help him God.

Steve has Bucky in his lap, forehead against his chest. Bucky’s hitched breaths are making little bobbing motions with his shoulders and it breaks Steve’s heart. Bucky’s hands are curled up in his own lap, white-knuckled like he’s still afraid of being punished for taking comfort.

“Just breathe, just breathe,” Steve chants, a parallel to all those years ago when Bucky had to say the same thing to him. His hands stroked through tangled hair, gently smoothing as he went along. Steve lets his hands fall as Bucky’s head tilts up, his eyes red-rimmed and swollen from crying. He gives one last sniffle, looking a lot more like the Bucky Barnes Steve remembers. “Thanks punk,” Bucky rasps. His voice is rough like he’s been screaming for hours - and well - he has. It leaves Steve wrecked every time, knowing he was there - frozen, _resting_ \- while Bucky was tortured.


End file.
